Saturday, November 19, 2011

This is a small list of Skyrim Tweaks, Bugfixes and Workarounds. At this time it is incomplete and aimed mostly at the PC version of Skyrim. Note: Console commands can reportedly be used on console versions if using a USB Keyboard.

[0.000] Read this before you do anything.Before applying any patches or modifications, make a backup of your game saves and ini settings.

You can do so by backing up 'My Documents/My Games/Skyrim/Saves' and Skyrim.ini (or SkyrimPrefs.ini) located in 'My Documents/My Games/Skyrim'. You can also use Dropbixifier to backup these files or you can use RedawgTS's TES V Savegame Manager.

Fixes bugs:
GRAPHIC: flame from dragons breath, other fire and magix fx invisible, volumetric fog, black dots on the screen or kind of black fence on it, other related to graphics (if you have them). Also it have property to increase quality of shadow texture for reducing "pixelation" (it's not a smooth shadows).
PERFORMANCE: this patch not increase performance as framerate (only for some WinXP or very specific systems), but it fix freezing of the game in about 5 seconds when traveling the world. Performance increased for shadow quality "Ultra".
GENERIC:
Some users noticed no black screens ar bsod any more.

Large Address Awareness (Alters Skyrim executable directly to allow use of 4GB of useable memory.)
4GB Skyrim (Mod version of the above method.)
Note: The Large Address Awareness Flag needs to be set to safely tweak uGrids. (See below, especially if you have the 1.2 or greater version of Skyrim.exe.)

[3.000] Settings TweaksAll of these tweaks are system-related tweaks or modifications to 'Skyrim.ini' or 'SkyrimPRefs.ini' located in 'My Documents/My Games/Skyrim'. For simplicity's sake, this file will be referred to as 'SkyrimPrefs'.

Fix mouse acceleration by disabling it in SkyrimPrefs.
- Set bMouseAcceleration=0 in the [Controls] section

Fix y-axis sensivity being different from x-axis.
- Add to following under the [Controls] section. If you don't have a [Controls] section, just add it.
fMouseHeadingYScale=0.0200
fMouseHeadingXScale=0.0200

Note: fMouseHeadingYScaleis another setting that you will just have to 'play with' until it feels alright in-game. It may end up being different from fMouseHeadingXScale as well.

[3.003] ShadowsThe further the distance (ie: 8000), the lower the resolution. The closer the distance (200), the higher resolution shadows will be but they will also be drawn far less.

Change 'iShadowMapResolution=XXXX' to something like 4096 to 8192. (Note that this setting requires a bit of testing to see what performs and looks best on your hardware.)

[4.000] uGrids and Previous Versions of the Skyrim Executable.

[4.001] Using the older version of TESV.exe

Firstly, disable automatic updating for Skyrim if you are using the Steam version.

This method uses Windows 7 with System Protection enabled on the drive where Skyrim was installed to retrieve the previous version. If you do not have this enabled, KKRT00's DRM Free Executable at the NeoGAF Forums may be used instead, though you must register and be a member in order to see the link for it.

1. Navigate to the Skyrim folder (\Steam\steamapps\common\skyrim)
2. Right-Click the Skyrim folder and choose Properties
3. Click the Previous Versions tab
4. Find version of the folder from before today, highlight it and click Open
5. Copy the TESV.exe file and paste it into your game directory

[4.002] TheOctagon's uGrids tutorial

Note: Credit for this section solely goes to TheOctagon at NeoGAF.

uGridsToLoad should be a harmless setting to play with if you know how to restore your saves.
As said before, your save becomes effectively 'bound' to the value you specify and will crash the game if you try it with a lower value.
What you need to do is load the save with the value it was saved at, then rewrite and refresh the ini, then save again.

Here's how:
1) Load game with uGridsToLoad at the 'safe' setting - the one it was at when you saved.
2) Load the save, which should load correctly.
3) Open the console and type the following:

setini "ugridstoload:general" 5
saveini
refreshini

This has restored the uGridsToLoad setting to its default while your save is already open.
4) Save the game. The save you create now will work at any uGrids setting from the default up.

A Large Address Aware patch to the TESV.exe is essential for safe uGrids tweaking, and even then the results are entirely subject to your system specs and the drive you're running the game from.
You're totally overloading the game's streaming system by doing this, so you'll probably need the entire game installed on an SSD for stability and performance.
The aforementioned exe is a 32bit application that can't use more than 2gb of RAM. This is insufficient. Follow this method so you can give Skyrim full access to all the RAM it needs, provided you have enough:

Doing this can solve a whole range of problems, from instability when taking screenshots to random CTDs. One thing it won't do is create problems. If you're getting them afterward, the problem is elsewhere.

I'm playing the game at 2160p with FXAA (no multisampling - that's a performance killer) and it's smooth as butter, so these tweaks do work.
As with Oblivion, though, once you've taken all the necessary steps, only the intricate configuration of your PC can really determine how stable they are.

Something else to bear in mind is that this is with a vanilla install. In all likelihood, once a significant HD texture mod arrives, uGridsToLoad will become a much more volatile thing to play with.

One other thing regarding uGridsToLoad. You should probably read and apply this information from the excellent TweakGuides.com. This is for Oblivion but evidently applies to Skyrim as well.

Memory Tweaks:

uInterior Cell Buffer=3
uExterior Cell Buffer=36

The above values determine how many cells (whether for interior or exterior areas) are buffered into RAM.
Note that usually the value of the Exterior Cell Buffer variable is automatically set by the engine based on the size of the uGridstoLoad variable.
The higher that variable is, the higher the engine will raise this value. However if you want to smooth out your FPS, try manually setting a higher value for both of these, depending on how much RAM you have.
For 1GB I recommend doubling the values (6 and 72 respectively).
For 2GB of RAM, I use 16 and 102 respectively. For higher amounts of RAM, try raising them higher, however note that you should also raise the iPreloadSizeLimit value below.

iPreloadSizeLimit=26214400 - This setting appears to determine the maximum amount (in bytes) of RAM allowed for preloading game data. The higher the value, the more chance you have of reducing stuttering.
The default value equates to around 25MB (divide the setting by 1024 to get KB, then by 1024 again to get MB). For those with 1GB of system RAM, try doubling the variable to 52428800.
For those with 2GB, try double again at 104857600 (100MB).
You can raise these values even further to experiment, however note that raising this to a large amount doesn't force all the game data to sit in RAM, and can actually cause crashes.
I suggest the maximum anyone should set this to should be around 262144000 (250MB), even for 2GB of RAM. Make sure to raise your Cell Buffer values accordingly (see above).

player.modav carryweight XX - where XX is the amount by which you wish to increase your carrying capacity; e.g. if your current weight limit is 300 and you wish to raise it to 1000, use a value of 700.player.setcrimegold XXX - Set it high if you want to fight, set it at 0 if you want to be free.player.setlevel X - Make X equal your desired character level.player.setav speedmult X - Where X equals your movement speed in a percentage value. (100 = 100%)player.setav skill X - Sets skill without messing with level gains. The skill name can be found from the skill list, and X equals the value you want that skill to be.This also works for health, stamina, magicka, and carryweight. Example: [player.setav marksman 50] sets your archery to 50.player.modav skill X - Buffs or debuffs a skill. The skill name can be found from the skill list, and X equals the value you want that skill to be.Example: If your Block skill is 30, you can "player.modav block 10", activating a buff to your Block and setting it to 40 (with the skill level appearing green as if a spell or item is affecting the skill).The same can be done in reversing by using a negative integer. Using "player.modav block -10" would activate a permanent debuff to your Block and set it to 10 (with the skill level appearing in red).

Other Codesmovetoqt - teleports you to quest target (currently not working for me, but is recognised by console.It will only work on quests with target markers, Bethesda quests;will not work on side quests with the new variable target locations.)AdvSkill - Give the player the desired amount of skill usage points [AdvSkill onehanded 100] (after some testing the number placed at the end of the command would indicate usage points, not skill points.For example: if you used advskill onehanded 100, it would be the equivalent of 100 swings of a one handed sword, not 100 skill points.) Skill listIncPCS - Increase the players skill points by one point [IncSkill onehanded] - Skill Listplayer.modav carryweight ## - Adds amount to weight limit (Can also use health or magicka or stamina instead of carryweight to increase those totals.)PSB - Adds every spellqqq - quits the game without exiting to the main menu.unlock - Target the desired chest or door by clicking on it and then type "unlock"lock XXX - You can lock chests and door, or people by targeting them and typing "lock" followed by the level of difficulty you wish to set it at.kill - Target your enemy by clicking on them once in the console menu and type "kill" and it does just that.killall - Kills all hostiles in your immediate vicinityressurect - Killed someone you didn't mean to? Target them once in the console menu and type "ressurect" and it will bring them back from the grave.removeallitems - Target the desired character from the console menu and then type "removeallitems" and they will be stripped of everything in their inventory, including their clothes.